Former Times executive Liz Gerard unpicks the Daily Mail’s recent political leadership coverage amid talks of a Liz Truss comeback
Friday 3 February, 2023Liz Gerard’s newly published book, Trussed Up, chronicles how The Daily Mail tied itself in knots over the Tory leadership – from the demise of Johnson, through the catastrophe of Truss, ending in Sunak’s coronation.
The Daily Mail is the newspaper Tory MPs respect and fear. But what happens when the paper loses the plot? Outraged that Boris Johnson was forced out in July 2022, the Voice of Middle England pulled out all the stops to make sure the Tories installed Liz Truss as PM. She lasted six weeks before the paper admitted she was a disaster, flirted with the notion of a Johnson comeback, and finally, in a jaw-dropping U-turn, hailed the ‘new dawn’ of Rishi Sunak – the man it had spent all summer denigrating.
Fleet St knockabout? Or are more serious issues at play? In this sharp and witty analysis, award-winning media commentator Liz Gerard dissects more than 500 news reports and editorials to lay bare the confusion, contortions and contradictions that left the Mail squirming. Shouldn’t the paper at least acknowledge its role in landing us with the Truss catastrophe? Especially now amid current media talk of a Liz Truss comeback.For students of the interplay between politics, journalism and history, this provocative and disturbing investigation is unmissable.
Trussed Up is published by Bite-Sized Books and available on Amazon see: https://tinyurl.com/3x9zs4nc
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